With the RFK, Jr endorsement of Trump we can truly say that this is no longer a GOP vs Democrat election. It really is The People vs The Powerful. We’re not fighting to elect Trump so much as fighting to destroy a corrupt, stupid and cruel Ruling Class. This Class does include many GOPers as well as a host of pundits and such who have made their way by being the controlled opposition to the Democrats. This is best shown by some alleged pro-lifers saying they’ll vote Harris or sit the election out because Trump hasn’t been Simon-pure on abortion.
Nobody on Earth is more of a pro-life fanatic than me. I want the barbaric, inhuman practice banned. There is never any legitimate reason to terminate a pregnancy. Pregnancy is not a disease. No pregnancy is unplanned. No child is unwanted. There are some times tragic and even wicked circumstances that produce the unborn child, but the unborn child is still a miracle of life…and a human being vested immediately upon conception with all the rights that every other human being enjoys. But politics is the art of the possible. Except in a few very Red States and localities, a ban on abortion simply isn’t possible. We’re more than 50 years into the Ruling Class propagandizing for abortion and those lies have sunk deep roots into the American heart and mind. So deep that even decent, moral people can be confused on the issue and so be unwilling to ban. We’ll be a long time undoing it – and the effort is now, politically, State and local while the real work is to build a Culture of Life that will make the very concept of abortion unthinkable.
But here are supposed pro-lifers essentially knifing us in the back – as if electing a pro-abortion fanatic like Harris will help. Of course it won’t. But they don’t care. They are not actually pro-life…they are pro- making money off the life issue. And you make the most money by losing. That is, by having abortion legal everywhere and issuing futile complaints about it with a link at the bottom for a donation. This is the sort of people who infest our Ruling Class – Democrat and Republican. Truly vile people who play upon emotions to secure power and wealth they couldn’t earn in a fair system. And now the people are starting to unite against it. Sure, under the banner of MAGA and with Trump in the lead, but it really isn’t about Trump any longer.
It is about MAGA.
It is about getting rid of these hideous people and starting to reform our nation – to restore the shining city on the hill. To secure for ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty. But here is the thing: you can’t recapture the past. The America of, say, 1912 when my grandfather was 16 is gone forever. We’ll never get back to that time when Americans were largely untaxed and unregulated – and the America where it was expected that everyone pulls their weight with no help from the government. In order to secure those blessing of liberty we are going to have to take reality into consideration. And while always working to reduce the tax and regulatory burden and build a self-reliant people, understand that in the short- and medium-term quite a lot of the Progressive mess will have to remain; our job being to turn it away from its Progressive intent.
In light of this and in keeping with building the broadest possible Reform coalition, we can’t just outright reject some things. I’ve talked in the past about the GOP leading the way in student debt reform – the Democrats just want to keep passing out the debt and then relieving it selectively for political purposes. We should be working to make it dischargable in bankruptcy, holding the schools accountable for at least some of the debt and forcing colleges to reduce costs (education costs have increased by orders of magnitude faster than inflation). In other words, we drop the “pay your bills, bum” and start to work on measures that resolve the problem while garnering support.
Welfare is a bane. We know this. But we can’t just end it like waving a magic wand. We need programs that require recipients to work – even if its make-work. And ensure that anyone who works 40 hours a week has sufficient to live a dignified life in their neighborhood: so, if the person is working but only making 80% of what’s needed, we kick in the other 20%. The goal is to show the poor that we’re here for them; that we want better for them – and to twist welfare away from a permanent dependency into a temporary launch pad. You can see where I’m going with this.
Coalition building is hard, but it is necessary. We can’t do the reforms we need with a bare EC win, or even a bare popular majority. We need to start working for 60% of the vote…for a MAGA trifecta that will last for 20 years. That is how long it will take to impose sufficient reforms to ensure that even when MAGA finally loses an election, the other side will be required to keep our programs in place…much as the GOP had to when they finally beat the Democrats after 20 years of the New Deal.
I do believe we are on the cusp of an historic victory. The Harris campaign is a fraud. Not just the usual run of lies, but a complete set of lies from start to finish, all designed to make it seem like she’s winning when the reality is 180 degrees different. Reminder: if it elects Harris, that is a bonus – the goal is to prevent a Congressional and State Democrat meltdown. They know that if they hold that power then even 4 years of Trump won’t fundamentally change things. This is what they are doing – saving the Party; Harris is just a placeholder who allows Democrats to pretend their standard bearer isn’t responsible for the mess. But I do not believe this will work – I can see the outlines of a big Trump win coming. But it only comes via Trump’s strategy – and you have seen enough by now to know he’s not running ideologically Right…he’s running to garner a broad coalition. Our job is to join in the effort. Make it our own. And carry it forward even after Trump is gone.
Blogs For Victory 
“we kick in the other 20%. “
Who is “we”? Not the feds because that would be a violation of the 10th Amendment, so who exactly is this “we” of which you speak?
“dignified life in their neighborhood” is so vague, so subjective, it is unworkable. “Dignified” to one person might mean being able to dine in fine restaurants, while to another it means having a new car and to another just having a safe secure home. Nope. People have always found ways to get along, even if not ideal—having roommates, working two or three jobs, walking to work, buying used cars and clothes, cooking at home instead of eating prepared food. And this is where PEOPLE come into play—people in churches, people who fund and work in soup kitchens and food banks, communities where people reach out to individuals, not classes of people based on generalities.
Shift the burden of student loans to the schools. That is when there will be standards, both of admission and of lending. Make the schools have skin in the game. No bankruptcy. Nothing to bail out reckless borrowing. If there is a feeling of wanting to help people who went deep into debt to get useless degrees, have states or cities or foundations fund job training. School costs have skyrocketed because of a system that has guaranteed a lot of students with OPM to pay for the bloated administrations, fluff classes, etc. Narrow the stream of students and the excess in school costs will resolve itself. “forcing colleges to reduce costs” reeks of government interference and that bugaboo of the government feeling that it has to “solve” every problem.
Welfare is sometimes necessary, but there is no reason to make it pleasurable. There is nothing wrong with being embarrassed to be on government assistance—that is a good thing. There was a time when welfare included nourishing food that wasn’t necessarily tasty but was adequate. That included powdered milk and the dreaded “government cheese”. When neighbors fell on hard times, the rest of us stepped up—they got eggs and milk and cheese and bread and hamburger and meat like Spam, and we traded for blocks of the cheese, which was perfectly good cheese. We helped out where we could, till the neighbors got back on their feet again. There was no motivation to stay on welfare, because while it sustained them it wasn’t fun. It’s supposed to be a safety net, not a luxury suite or a lifetime of support.
An uncle was a sonar technician in the Navy, which he leveraged in the private sector into a very good job with a defense contractor. People have always chosen to trade years in the military for training in medicine or electronics or mechanical engineering. If we want to help people we should work on things like establishing a good apprentice system.
And if people want to get high instead of passing drug tests to get jobs or welfare, let them. But don’t support them. Arrest them when they break laws, like theft and public defecation, etc. but let them suffer the consequences of their decisions. People have managed in this sissy society to get pretty old without ever learning that life is full of choices, like “eat” or “get high”. A stable society depends on having people who understand this and bear the consequences of their decisions, while those who make productive decisions can go about living their productive lives without being responsible for the slackers.
The details would be the details, but “we” is you and me – the taxpayers. The requirement for us, I believe, is that we shift our focus…no longer condemning welfare. Heck, making it sound like we loves ourselves some welfare…but changing the content of it. Like this as one for-instance:
The Income Support Act of 2025.
Don’t you love it? I think that “Support” is just great terminology. How does it work?
1. If you are physically fit, you must work full time. If you are and don’t, you can’t obtain any benefits at all.
2. If fully private sector employment is simply not available (and it won’t be in some of the most welfare-blighted areas…ie, the places where we need it the most), then the program will provide make-work. Picking up trash on the side of the road. Painting over graffiti. That sort of thing – the work out to contractors, the employees from the pool of available welfare recipients. But it is a job. Most likely a minimum wage job but a job…and its 40 hours a week. The former welfare bum is now contributing to society. And learning life skills – the sort of skills they’ll need if they are ever to rise up the economic ladder.
3. However, lets face it, picking up trash is low skill and not going to pay a lot…suppose it pays a person, after tax, $300.00 a week but rent/food/utilities/transport is $400.00 a week in that area? That’s where we step in and just make up the difference. Remember, if you don’t work, you get nothing. If you do work, you get enough…and all of us know that once you start working and building up those performance skills, higher and higher income always becomes available to you. It takes the current welfare which breeds dependency and turns it – at likely no greater overall cost – into a job-skills program.
We must keep in mind that in some areas we’re on fourth and fifth generations of welfare dependency. These people are mostly illiterate. Have no skills. They are mindless consumers who only know when their EBT card reloads. We have to try to get these people to be productive…it won’t be easy and it won’t be cheap. But by bringing this program to them we’ll turn a heavily Democrat constituency into a swing vote. And I can’t imagine this program actually costing more than the current one…especially as this program will require vastly fewer bureaucrats to run.
And what is the impetus for someone coasting in a dead end job with Uncle Sugar making up the difference between what he is paid and what he “needs”? Where’s the motivation for self improvement? Where’s the stimulus to get better job skills even if just to advance to chief trash picker-upper, supervising other trash picker-uppers?
And why is OK for a “conservative” to violate the Constitution “for a good cause” and not a Liberal? Once the restraints of the Constitution are stretched, or bent, or broken, it becomes just a matter of degree, and then it’s always “just a little bit more”.
You want more money? Work harder. Work better. Work smarter. Learn stuff. Get a second job. Millions of people work two or even three jobs.
James Madison, who by the way WROTE the Constitution, said ““Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” He ought to know.
He also said “The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general.” as well as
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Seems appropriate in a thread titled “MAGA”:
RFK teased yesterday that more disaffected Democrats will be joining the MAGA movement, and that’s what this has become, a movement of normal Americans who have simply had enough of the bitching, whining and pandering of the Democrat Party. I not only want to defeat the current Democrat Party, I want to dismantle the current Democrat Party.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/08/update-rfk-jr-announces-he-will-be-actively/
After watching this, you’ll want to dismantle it even more.
They don’t even see the irony. They are not normal people.
And where the f**k is Biden or Harris? They’re not at Arlington for the wreath ceremony honoring the 13 who died in Afghanistan? Trump is there. Democrats have proven themselves to be useless human beings.
It appears to me, from things Trump indicated some 6 months ago, he is still strong on the jab that “he” pushed across the finish line in record time. Considering the known fallout of the jab and a great deal more problems yet to manifest itself, giving RFK jr.’s stand on the issue his actively campaigning for Trump could be a great addition to the equation. While I’m guessing Trump has strong thoughts on the matter, giving his ear to RFK on the subject would seem a major plus.
Kennedy teased significant upcoming announcements, hinting that President Trump will soon reveal other Democrats who are joining his campaign. “President Trump is going to make a series of announcements of other Democrats who are joining his campaign.
While this may look good on the surface, I would be very hesitant to include ANY democrats in a position in the Trump administration. Aside from the very few who’ve already made waves within their party and are essentially on the outside, I simply don’t trust them. For those few, even though they seemed to have pulled away from the democrat platform on “some” issues, they still adhere to much of the leftist dogma. They are significant number of strong right-side people to fill Trump’s administration & advisers. For those few democrats who’ve become frustrated with their own party, there could be bonuses working with them, but given the situation during his previous presidency, Trump needs to far more careful as to who he trusts.
How many of the positions you are talking about convey the authority to enact Leftist ideology? And if it creeps in, a little oversight can nip it in the bud. I have no problem in promising some administrative positions to Democrats if that is a good political decision, which I think it is, given the opposite move from the Dems which is to increase divisiveness at any cost to any degree. If the effort to strip legislative powers from agencies is effective, agency heads will be primarily admin anyway.
I have always said Trump is totally wrong on the vaxx thing and should have backed away from it months ago, years ago, kicking Fauci to the curb and admitting that he was wrong. Not in his initial reaction to seek and follow advice from the “experts” or in his push to clear away impediments to swift research and development, but later in his failure to see the outcome and act.
As Mark mentioned, there are a lot of “conservative” posters on X claiming Trump is “not conservative” enough and/or too “liberal on abortion” for their liking. First of all, these people are not conservatives, they are pretenders, but there are some conservatives who hold that opinion, and in my opinion, those are the worst type of conservatives. In fact, I’m tired of the conservative moniker only because I am tired of being associated with losers. Name one damn thing these “conservatives” have conserved in the last 30 years. There is none. Not one damn thing. All they do is whine, bitch, and lose.
MAGA is more of a common sense, American movement rather than a conservative movement and I am very happy about that. I prefer conservative pragmatism over conservative ideology.
What is “conservative ideology” and what is “conservative pragmatism” and how are they different?
I understand how the word “conservative” has come to be conflated with the concept of “conserving” something and I suppose to some extent that argument could be made—conserving the Constitution as our rule of law, perhaps. But to me conservatism IS ideology. It is the ideology of the meaning and intent of the Constitution and the laws it has laid out to govern the nation. If “pragmatism” intrudes on that ideology then it is veering away from true conservatism into Leftism.
In what way is MAGA contradictory to that? In what way is Make America Great Again not related to the ideology that the nation was at its greatest when it followed the Constitution? In what way has Trump not governed as a conservative?
You see, when we get ISSUES tangled up in thinking we get confused and lose track of the core POLITICAL values we are supposedly, as conservatives, trying to promote and return to.
We as a party started losing ground when we came up with issues-based, “values” based platforms. As I have said many times, to me if a woman runs an abortion clinic and is a high priestess of Wicca and plans to marry her girlfriend, she is a conservative if she believes that the federal government must be restricted in its size, scope and power, to the enumerated duties assigned to it in the Constitution, with most authority left to the states and to the people. When the GOP stuck to pure politics instead of ISSUES and VALUES it functioned as a true POLITICAL party, and was also the Big Tent Party because there was room in it for divergent belief systems as long as the POLITICAL beliefs were the same.
On the federal level I would happily welcome that Wiccan priestess, no matter how much I disagree with the issues and values she represents. On the state and local levels, where those issues should be decided, I would go head to head with her and fervently disagree with her and be on the opposite side of her agendas. But I believe in defining my terms. When I speak of Left and Right I do so in the context of American politics. I know what the Left is everywhere, but I have no idea what “rightwing” means anywhere but the United States, and I don’t care. And when I talk about politics in forums like this I am talking about national politics, and that is an arena where I think “issues” and “values” distract from what I personally think matters, which is the best blueprint for governing the nation.
I think we need to be relentless in identifying and eliminating Identity Politics, in every form where it appears. That includes fretting about positions on abortion, for example, because according to the 10th Amendment and Dobbs it isn’t in the scope of federal authority so when it comes to pure politics I really don’t care much how someone feels about it.
I believe that the shift from pure politics to issues and values and identity was pushed by the Left, because these all depend on personality and emotions, where they can be controlled through propaganda and a compliant press, while pure ideology is what it is and can be compared across the board to other ideologies without cluttering up the discourse with emotions.
Conservative pragmatism is accepting incremental wins and being flexible. Conservative ideology is often rigid and ineffective. In the last 20 years our country has amassed $30 trillion in debt while quality of life has demonstrably declined. Right now we need less philosophers and more street fighters.
How much flexibility do you think we should have in adherence to the Constitution? Because I happen to think it should be rigid and that when exercised it is extremely effective.
I think you are conflating the issues/values stuff with true ideology, mixing in all sorts of social values, personalities, tactics and so on with ideology, which is the blueprint for how to govern the nation. The political strategies and social interactions and so on are very different things.
I think Cluster is essentially saying just don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, which is something Conservatives tend to do. I’m not suggesting that we adopt the all-encompassing flexibility of the Left to just redefine things as we go along, but, as Mark has so often noted, politics is the art of the possible. Our goal is and should always be to follow the Constitution, amending it when necessary. Antonin Scalia once asked: “what is a moderate interpretation of the constitution? Is it halfway between what it says and what you want it to say?” The problem is that, until we are able to sweep the Progressive Left into the dustbin of history, they get a say in that interpretation.
I think I understand but quibble a little about the terminology. I agree that tactics, strategy, the nuts and bolts of political negotiations, have to be flexible and pragmatic. But that is not ideology. I contend that the ideology, the commitment to Constitutional governance, cannot be flexible but has to be a constant, a pivot point around which all the rest depends and revolves.
So, if we accept that as our pole star, then we can be flexible in our approaches to problem solving, we can compromise, and we can accept outcomes that are less than what we had hoped. But once the commitment to Constitutional governance becomes “flexible” or “pragmatic” the whole thing falls apart because there is no constant any more.
Exactly. Turning this ship around will require the art of politics and accepting incremental wins. Bringing RFK Jr. on board is a good example, while we don’t agree on everything, accepting what we do agree on and building from there, is a win. And more importantly, it hurts the Left, and that is the main goal right now … killing the left.
But once the commitment to Constitutional governance becomes “flexible” or “pragmatic” the whole thing falls apart because there is no constant any more.
I couldn’t agree more, but there’s a difference between strict adherence to the Constitution and ridged ideology. Abortion is the classic example as Mark noted in this post. In an ideal world, abortion wouldn’t exist, but in our imperfect world, it will continue to exist even with a national law banning it (which would also be un-constitutional), and yet you have people who believe it should be banned with no exceptions, and they would rather lose election after election than abandon that position.
On a personal basis abortion would be banned, period. But when I look at federal authority to do this, I don’t find it, so my only conclusion as a Constitutional Conservative is that, like it or not, the federal government has no authority over this. The states, however, do.
So in my opinion, the subject should not even be discussed at the federal level, in presidential elections, because it is not relevant to federal authority and is only a tool for creating conflict. This attitude moves this very important issue into the realm of state authority, which is where it belongs, and which was the intent of the Founders all along—to keep as much authority as possible as close to the people as possible.
And you bring up a good point—that people will still kill their inconvenient babies no matter which laws are passed. They always have, but the reasons used to be more serious—the actual inability to feed a growing family, as opposed to the idea of having to cut back on some luxuries, or the severe social shunning of unwed mothers. All we can do is address (and here I find myself forced to use a term that has recently become obnoxious) root causes of the outside influences. There is no longer a societal element, as unmarried pregnancy and motherhood are no longer looked down on, and pathological selfishness isn’t anything that the law can deal with. But as a society we can offer education and options, so surprise pregnancies are seen as something other than major problems that must be eliminated, rather than addressed. And the biggest role society can play is to make it clear that abortion is NOT morally right, that while people will still insist on doing this it is not acceptable. To me, knowing that abortion can never be fully eliminated, the biggest sin of society has been to sanitize it and present it as no big deal, nothing wrong with it, and even (in more radical circles) to celebrate it. This is where making it illegal sends the message that it is wrong.
If there was ever a time when this country strictly followed the Constitution, I am not aware of it, and until then, we are always struggling to form that more perfect union so we have to accept incremental wins as victories.
Meanwhile, the Left’s march toward incremental win after incremental win, continues unabated.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/27/trump-indicted-2020-election-subversion-00176503
You completely lost me there, Cluster. You seem to be saying that it’s OK to violate the Constitution if it’s “for a good cause” and that “good cause” would be “incremental wins”.
Maybe you should explain just what Constitutional rules should be or can be broken, bent, or bypassed in pursuit of these incremental pragmatic victories. Because when I look at the flexibility I have long been advocating in the Republican Party in what I consider a desirable and essential move toward once again becoming the Big Tent Party, not a single thing has involved tweaking allegiance to the Constitutional rule of law.
It is quite the opposite. My vision is one of declaring that this is the law, according to the Constitution. It’s summed up in the 10th Amendment. It is absolute. As long as you accept that this is the blueprint for governing the country you can have wildly different ideas of what you WANT–you just have to agree that if the pathway to what you want is not included in any of the enumerated duties of the federal government you’re going to have to look to the states or even local governments to achieve your goals.
Many of the Left’s “incremental wins” have been due to our refusal to enforce the admittedly rigid ideology of Constitutional law., a situation that can be corrected by—-and this doesn’t seem that complicated to me—–getting back to Constitutional restraints on the size, scope and power of the federal government, and the laxity on how we govern.
How do you do that? Well, first you stop the practice of letting unelected political appointees running federal agencies make laws, outside the only legal legislative body in the country, which is Congress. That single act strips the Left of much of its ability to keep running up “incremental wins”. Then you demand of Congress that it only pass laws that comply with the Constitutional restraints on power. That is, no more expansions of federal welfare and entitlement programs, accompanied by a gradual weaning off of existing programs. Control the purse and force all laws to go through Congress and you have made a lot of progress in eliminating those “incremental wins” of the Left that bother you.
I see most if not all of the things that bother you, these “incremental wins” as being outside the actual framework of the law and especially of Constitutional governance and more in the realm of society and culture and ISSUES.
You’re late to the party here, Cluster. I’ve been howling about being on defense for a couple of decades now. I’ve been furious, indignant, thoroughly pissed off about always being on the back foot, always trying to play catch-up, always giving up votes as if they will reciprocate and then being stabbed in the back, and above all having our legislators being sucked into ISSUES instead of sticking to the nuts and bolts of the governmental structure our party is supposed to represent. I’m glad you are now as ticked off as I have been, but I don’t need to be lectured on the stupidity of letting the other side gain ground.
I just think we need to be very very clear on just how that happened, and I think we let it happen because WE dropped the ball on sticking exclusively to the Constitution. We voted for bills that have nothing to do with the enumerated duties of the federal government. We can’t fix that by doing more of the same in an effort to “win” other incremental victories.
Here’s an “incremental win” for the Dems, one repeated daily. It is in the category of media supporting the Left, This is from the Politico article you linked about the new charges filed against Trump: In an apparent bid to downplay any connection between Trump’s official duties and his bid to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. In this one sentence fragment we see the two examples of the Left’s semantic manipulation—first that the January 6 rally was “an effort to overturn” the election and second that the outcome was “Joe Biden’s victory”.
This manipulation of public opinion by a dishonest lapdog press cannot be addressed in any way through any erosion of the “rigid ideology” of conviction that we have to govern according to the Constitution. This is a problem in the social, cultural and business arenas which is where it must be battled. The best way to battle it is to identify it and point it out as an effort to shape opinion and belief every time we encounter it. Instead, we see the likes of things like the claim Trump wanted to “overturn the election” creeping into publications that are not openly Leftist—what Mike Rosen called “semantic infiltration”. It’s insidious but it is effective and it accounts for a lot of the “incremental wins” you see.
In a just world, Jack Smith is the one who ends up in Leavenworth.
Robert Malone has Tucker Carlson’s interview with RFK Jr. along with a complete transcript. It’s a long interview, but if you can decipher the many voice recognition software glitches in the transcript, you can read it in a half hour or so. It’s worth the time.
A good watch here … this is what we are fighting against. I love the quote from the piece of shit Mayor … “Stop Talking”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/08/above-accountability-arizona-mom-arrested-council-meeting-mayor/
Another article that will leave you outraged.
I am glad Trump was there. Obviously Biden and Harris didn’t give a shit about going, which in a sane world would the be the headline. And speaking of that, if we lived in a normal world, Zuckerberg’s revelation yesterday should be the top story across all media. The Democrat administration pressured the media to censor speech to help them politically. How is that not the top story everywhere? .
I’m not surprised that Robert Malone is endorsing Trump, but it’s still a must read.
Add Tulsi Gabbard to the growing list of Trump endorsements.